ON THE 






FOR ADMISSIO" 



HARVARD COLLEGE 



A REPORT 

ON THE 

EXAMINATIONS IN ENGLISH 

FOR ADMISSION TO 

HARVARD COLLEGE 

JUNE 1906 



BY 



cr>^.^5< 



GREENOUGH 
F. W. C. HERSEY 
C. R. NUTTER 

INSTRUCTORS IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE 




CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

piiblisbe^ b\> tbe 'Glniverslt^ 

1907 



Gift 
The Uru-versity 



PREFATORY I^OTE 



Several years' experience in reading English entrance 
examination books has impressed upon us the regularity 
with which candidates repeat certain elementary errors. To 
put into the hands of teachers a large number of these 
errors and to make some suggestions for preventing them 
are the objects of this report. Any questions or comments 
from teachers will be welcome. They should be addressed 
to C. N. Greenough, 20 Holworthy Hall, Cambridge. 

Copies of this report (^price fifteen cents) may be obtained 
from the Publication Agent, 2 University Hall, Cambridge. 

Cambridge, February 22, 1907. " 



The entrance examination in Elementary English for June, 
1906, was as follows : — 

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH (a) 

(Two Hours) 

The examiner expects you to plan each answer before ivriting, 
to write neatly and legibly, to spell and punctuate correctly, and 
to be accurate and intelligent in choosing w^ords and in framing 
sentences and paragraphs. 

I 
(One Hour) 

Write carefully planned compositions on three of the 
follow^ing subjects. 

1. The good traits in Macbeth's character. 

2. Antonio and Bassanio as gentlemen. 

3. The scenes in The Merchant of Venice which excite sympathy 
for Shylock. 

4. Scott's poetry. 

5. My first reading of The. Lady of the Lake. 

6. The best scene in The Lady of the Lake and my reasons for 
liking it. 

7. "I found Him in the shining of the stars, 

I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields, 
But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die." 

8. How Gareth became a knight. 

9. Godfrey Cass. 

10. My reading apart from the prescribed books. 

II 

(One Hour) 

The examiner expects answers not merely correct but also well 
composed. Answer all the questions. 

1. What is the plot of Comus? 

2. Are the characters in Comus as much like real persons as the 
characters in Shakspere's plays? Give reasons for your 'answer. 

3. Relate the early life of Addison up to the time when he 
began to write for the Spectator. 

4. Tell what you know about Johnson's Club. 



A REPORT 

ON THE 

EXAMINATIONS IN ENGLISH 



I. eleme:n^tary E:N^aLiSH 

No type is too large to print the statement that the examina- 
tion in Elementary English for admission to Harvard College 
is not primarily a test of information, even though that infor- 
mation concerns English literature, but a test in which ability 
to write is indispensable and ail but completely sufficient. That 
this is not more fully realized may perhaps be due to the fact 
that colleges have formed the habit of testing candidates in Eng- 
lish by asking them questions on a fixed list of books. The 
temptation is therefore very strong to teach merely the books 
prescribed to illustrate the subject, instead of teaching the sub- 
ject itself. The chief result of reading these prescribed books 
should be an increase of ability to appreciate other books. The 
examiner would gladly see if this result has been attained by 
asking the candidate what he honestly thinks of certain passages 
of prose or poetry which he is presumed not to have seen before. 
But, except as optional questions, such tests can be given only 
after due notice in advance. Again, the examiner feels that most 
boys would be more themselves when explaining how to play 
base-ball or hockey than when endeavoring to tell what they 
think they ought to think about the character of Shylock. He 
would like also to take the measure of a boy from his answer to 
such a question as " What were the causes of the American Revo- 
lution?" But he cannot confine himself to such questions, — 
not because these matters are outside English literature, but be- 
cause not all boys can be presumed to be informed about them. 
Until one can get around the fact that the questions must be 
explicit and that each boy must have an equal chance to furnish 



himself with the subject-matter to answer them, it will be diffi- 
cult not to base the examination chiefly upon topics drawn from 
given books. 

How, then, can teachers use these prescribed books and at the 
same time pay due attention to the very important statements ^ 
in the Harvard admission requirements in English that ''no candi- 
date will be accepted in English whose work is seriously faulty in 
spelling, grammar, punctuation, or division into paragraphs," and 
that "in every case the examiner will regard knowledge of the 
books as less important than ability to write English"? The 
Harvard examiners believe that at least one-half of the time 
which the teacher of English has at his disposal should be spent 
upon instruction in English Composition. This instruction, in- 
stead of being limited to matters of grammar, punctuation, and 
the like, should not only include, but should strongly emphasize, 
those principles of composition which guide us in the construc- 
tion of sentences, paragraphs, and short whole compositions. 

GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC 

The statement in the Harvard University Catalogue (ed. 1906-07, 
page 336) that "no candidate will be accepted in English whose 
work is seriously faulty in spelling, grammar, punctuation, or 
division into paragraphs" means more than that deficiency in all 
of these points will prove fatal: it means that total ignorance of 
any one of them will be sufficient reason for failure. First, there- 
fore, let us try to sum up from the English examination books 
written in June, 1906, the chief weaknesses which mark boys as 
hopelessly inaccurate in grammar and rhetoric, and therefore, 
whatever their information about the prescribed books, candi- 
dates for the grade of E? 

The high school teacher no doubt feels that he has every right 
to take knowledge of English grammar for granted. But cer- 
tainly he cannot take practical command of it for granted. His 
pupils may know the difference between a phrase and a clause; 
they may even be able to distinguish between complex sentences 

1 Harvard University Catalogue, 1906-07, p. 336. 

* It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that books are graded A, B, C, D, or 
E : E means failure; A or B means distinguished excellence. 



and compound ; but in actual practice they seem to feel that such 
a topic as "The Character of Ivanhoe" is a matter so essentially 
important that it may be written about in sentences which are 
not merely compound when they ought to be complex, but which 
often lack that without which no sentence can ever satisfy the 
fastidious, — a verb. A high school teacher who does not spend 
a considerable part of the first year in reviewing, supplementing, 
and enforcing the instruction already given in the grammar 
schools may be sure that much of his more advanced instruction 
will be misspent. The importance of this advice is sufficiently 
illustrated by the following examples, most of which are so gross 
that comment upon them is unnecessary.^ 

1. "Then follows various scenes." 

2. "The most noted seems to have been Goldsmith, Garrick, Burke 
and others." 

3. "Addison wrote a description ®f his travels which were freely 
criticised." 

4. "Even an uneducated person without reading any comments but 
just depending on the play as they read it would brand both as the high- 
est type of gentlemen." 

5. "Our first impression of Sylock, even after seeing the play produced 
seems to arouse our hatred towards him but when each of the Jew's 
misfortunes are considered, we cannot avoid feeling a spark of sypathy 
for him." 

6. "The child who just able to creep was attracted by the fire within 
whose glow reflected on the snow through the open door." 

7. "Macbeth's bravery is seen in the way he defeated the Danes. 
And again when we hear Duncan compare Macbeth to Bellona's bride- 
groom. Then too in the respect which the other characters hold him." 

8. "Then too the way the murders which he has committed weigh on 
him later." 

9. " In the scene where Shylock tells Antonio how he has treated him 
on the Rialto and the answer which Antonio gives him shows plainly to 
us that Antonio has forgotten himself." 

^ All of the examples in. this pamphlet were written in June, 1906, by 
candidates for admission to Harvard College. Many of them, of course, con- 
tain other defects than the one which they are selected to illustrate. 



10. "Which showed that he still had some spark of manhood left 
within him." 

11. "When he tells graphicly how he is spurned by the vilest Chris- 
tian, his cloak is spit upon, and he is called dog, knave and as many 
other vile names as his Christian tormentors can devise." 

12. "Whereas the shapes of the people in the plays of Shakespeare, 
never loose their originality." 

13. "Among whom were Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds and others." 

14. "Tennyson does not state who Gareth married." 

15. "He calls curses on the head of his daughter who he once loved 
■s^ith all his heart." 

16. "He was too good to act as bad as his brother Dunstan." 

17. "At this time Antonio's ships were all at sea and had no ready 
money to give Bassanio." 

IS. "Her brothers, who were her companions meet a farmer he know- 
ing where this Comus lives and leads them there." 

19. "Antonio is direct, a little harsh, and yet his friendship for Bas- 
sanio and Bassanio 's love for him are characters that no one who has 
read the play cannot help from recommending it with the highest praise." 

20. "Gareth was the son of Lot, a most bitter antagonist of Arthur 
and in the baron's war was killed leaving three sons the youngest of 
whom was Gareth." 

21. "He cannot even call his life his own, besides losing all his money, 
does he not deserve pity?" 

22. " I think the way that Antonio stood by his friend and was ready 
to die if necessary for him, was a higher, nobler and greater man than 
'Comus.'" 

23. "Johnson finally acquired enough money to keep the wolf from 
his door, and to occasionally, if not often, lie in bed in the morning." 

Equally serious is the prevalent neglect of English idiom, which 

V is most frequently revealed in the ill-treatment of prepositions. 

Sometimes this neglect seems traceable to the habit of translating 

foreign languages word by word with no real effort to find the 

corresponding English idiom. 

24. "Bassanio spent most of his time for the interest of his business 
and also for friends." 



25. "To one who is perhaps prejudiced, Sylock does not at any time 
arouse any great amount of simpathy." 

26. "For this manly act King Arthur bestowed Gareth with knight- 
hood." 

27. " One cannot help to be more or less interested in one of the char- 
acters namely Shy lock." 

28. "He succeeded to keep it secret." 

29. "This I think the principal reason to judge him courteous." 

30. "The motives which prompt him selfish though they are, are 
done not to do any wrong but only to secure his own safety." 

31. "So after inviting Duncan to the castle to spend the night he 
prepared to kill Duncan which was against his will." 

32. "The plot in the Comus is Vice and Temptation trying to best 
Chastity." 

33. "Macbeth was an able general, and did not have any traits to kill 
anyone." 

34. "The tables are turned, Antonio having the Jew at his complete 
mercy." 

35. "After a while their judgment on a certain book having become 
known, it would either give unbounded popularity or condemnation to 
the work." 

35. "Comus, coming up, found her and enchanted her body, her 
mind, being pure, remaining untouched." 

Boys whose command of grammar and idiom is so imperfect L-^ 
might be expected to be weak in spelling and in the use of capital 
letters. They are. Their inability to spell has two disastrous 
results: first, it cramps their vocabulary by limiting them to 
words which they think they know how to spell^- secondly, it 
causes positive errors which, if very frequent, are sufficient reason 
for failure. Of the following examples of these errors the words 
starred are altogether the most common. 

accustumed. *altho. 

aggreeableness. annimal. 

alow. borroring {for borrowing). 

*alright. carear. 

^ An examiner often finds that a candidate has balked at a hard word, 
crossed it out, and substituted an easy one. 



10 



*cheif. 

cirtain. 

coenside. 

cralled (for crawled). 

cruilty. 

debace. 
*decission. 

dept (for debt). 
*dieing (for dying). 
*differant. 

discised (for disguised). 
*discribe. 
*dissapeared. 
*dissapoint. 

draging. 

drugery. 

ducets. 

duckets. 

douchess. 

enjure. 
*exagerate, 

excuisate (for exquisite). 

fary (for fairy). 

feal. 

feaseability. 
*finaly. 

forfiture. 
*french. 

gauling taunts. 

glommy (for gloomy). 
*godess. 

gost (for ghost). 
*grammer. 

graphicly. 

hearafter. 

hieiniousness. 
*independant. " ' 

*infinate. 
*insistant. 
*interlectual. 

intised. 

Itally. 
*it's (possessive). 



knav/ (for gnaw). 

knight (for night). 

Laten. 
*latin. 

Latten. 

Lattin. 
*lead (/or led). 
*litterary. 
*loose (for lose). 

louses (for loses). 

messanger. 

nave (for knave). 

night (for knight). 
*noticable. 

noticible. 

nympth. 

ostricised. 

overestamated. 

permision. 

permition. 
*phamplet. 
*planed (for planned). 

populor. 
*posess. 

pray (for prey). 
*predjudice. 

prey (for pray), 
♦principal (for principle), 
♦principle (for principal). 
*privelage. 
*proffessioh. 

promiscous. 
*prommissed. 

prophasies. 

propicies. 
♦recieve. 

redeme. 

repeatidly . 

*rythum (and various other sub- 
stitutes for rhythm). 

senes (for scenes). 
*sentance. 
♦seperate. 



11 

*shepard. two {jor to). 

*shepheard. togeather. 

shure. threshole {"the starry threo- 

sirch. h.o\Q of Jove's court"). 

soliloquoy. --,. *throughly. 

soUaquie. *thru. 

sumed up. thruout. 

*supprise. undoubtably. 

suprise. villiage. 

thier. *villian. 
*tho. Venecian. 

*thot {for thought). warrier. 

timerity. wickid. 

*to {Jar too). *writter. 

Our concern is not primarily with proper names, even if they 
are improperly spelled. Therefore we shall not dwell upon the 
Gaurdifin Angle who revealed himself to one critic of Addison's 
Campaign; nor shall we attempt to penetrate the disguise of 
Adderson, Banco, Bodswel, McCauley, or Sir Josuar Renals. Such 
forms as Physche, Physh, Pyche, Syche, Physyce, Psyce, and Physic 
betray ignorance of classical etymology, the significance of which 
will be spoken of later. 

From the list of misspellings it seems clear that: — 

(a) . Many errors in spelling occur because the boy attempts to 
write words as he mispronounces them. Graphicly, cruilty, coen- 
side, ostricised, threshole, wickid, timerity, and sentance are exam- 
ples of this. To remedy this kind of misspelling teachers must 
encourage reading aloud and must insist that pupils give to each 
syllable its proper value. 

(b) To spell correctly a boy must know not merely the whole 
word, but the separate syllables. If he knows Greek and Latin, 
he must apply them; if he does not know Greek and Latin, hi.-! 
teacher of English will do well to write on the blackboard such 
words as describe, surprise, and separate, and to explain that discribe 
would mean "to write to pieces," supprise would be "to under- 
take" instead of "to overtake," and seperate would lose its family 
resemblance to prepare, parade, and the like. Before leaving 
this point, we venture to remind teachers that even a slight 



12 

study of etymology will increase appreciation as well as accuracy, 
for it will reveal the metaphor hidden in such words as attention,^ 
apprehend, ostracised, and will prevent such expressions as, 
"Gareth was the most unique son of Lot and Bellicent," 
wherein the word unique is made false to its own etymology. 

(c) Many misspellings, like many improprieties, result from the 
confusion of similar words. These troublesome pairs of words, 
such as loose and lose, principal and principle, except and accept, 
should be learned as foreign paradigms are learned, — by exact 
and insistent drill. 

Another subject for exact and insistent drill is punctuation. 
If boys cannot understand that marks of punctuation mean 
almost as much as the words which they separate, and if they 
cannot as yet feel on friendly terms with semicolons and colons, 
they can at least avoid the following sins, both of omission and 
of commission, in the use of the comma: — 

(a) Many boys have been allowed to omit the comma after 
the next to the last word in a series when " and " follows. At 
Harvard it is insisted that in such cases the comma shall be used. 

37. "Macbeth was brave, daring and noble." 

38. "The careless, free and impulsive Bassanio." 

39. "Four armed men who called themselves by the odd naimes of 
Morning Star, Noon Sun, Evening Star and Night." 

(6) In dealing with words which are parenthetical or in appo- 
sition candidates make such blunders as: — 

40. "He was not however strong enough to ignore the prophecy." 

41. "In Comus the characters especially the Lady does not seem as 
real." 

42. "Macbeth the villianous king of Scotland." 

43. "It was Lancelot the chief of knights who had followed Gareth." 

44. "The motives which prompt him selfish though they are, are," etc. 

* Carlyle, Past and Present, Book ii, Chap. 17, quoted by A. S. Hill, Prin- 
ciples of Rhetoric, p. 115. See also J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, 
Words and their Ways in English Speech, pp. 9 ff. 



13 

45. "Wlien Gareth, the son of Lot and Bellicent became of age, he," 
etc. 

46. "Noble breeding one of the chief requisites of a gentleman are 
unquestionably possessed by both." 

47. "Shylock turns to leave the room a complete outcast penniless 
and compelled to change his religion." 

(c) Candidates are so given to the indiscriminate use of com- 
pound sentences that they should certainly learn how to punctu- 
ate coordinate clauses; yet over and over again an examiner finds 
such sentences as these : — 

48. "He doesn't weary one with useless description but nevertheless 
his attention to detail is surprising when one looks especially for that 
thing." 

49. "His best studies were the classics but in everytliing which he 
undertook he was noted for his clearness." 

(d) Although an examiner is grateful for every complex sen- 
tence he finds, his satisfaction is not complete unless the punctu- 
ation of the subordinate clause is more intelligent than this: — 

50. "After Gareth 's first victory the maiden seemed a little more 
pleased with her companion but even after he had conquered Noonday 
Sun she declared she could still smell the odor of the kitchen." 

51. "This friendship though it is admirable in itself and one of the 
marks of gentlemen is not the principal point which marks them as 
such." 

52. "Gareth claims the quest and quickly dorming his armor he 
gallops after Lynette who had fled from Arthur's court." 

53. "In despair they call upon the virgin Sabrina who rising from the 
river gives them the herb by which the lady is restored to life." 

54. "When Clan Alpine's men drive the Saxon light infantry before 
them his face brightens and he wishes he had been there to share azid 
complete the victory." 

55. "Up to this time although he is conceded to be unfortunate in 
many respects real sympathy is not called forth." 

56. "They, however, need not worry over her safty as her wisdom 
and virtue protected her." 



1 4 

(e) A particularly troublesome kind of complex sentence is that 
which contains a relative clause. Few candidates understand the 
difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. 
Hence the entrance examination books contain a great many such 
sentences as: — < 

57. "He seems to change his very being and to commit crimes, which 
he would have positively shuddered at before." 

58. "No true gentleman could refuse to give so slight a reward to a 
person, who had so nobly served him, as the learned doctor has served 
Bassanio." 

59. "The plot is entirely developed by the author himself who moves 
his characters and causes them to speak at his pleasure." 

60. "He even goes so far as to say that he would wilUngly sacrifice 
Portia whom he has only just won if in doing so he might save Antonio."' 

Errors such as these have brought down the grade of E upon 
book after book. Let us now consider a few cases where the 
choice of words makes the style harsh or slovenly. Such a style, 
although it may not result in actual failure, can hardly rise to 
the grade of C, which denotes satisfactory work. 

61. "Addison was a student-loving boy." 

62. "One brother is an optimus and the other a pessimus." 

63. "The proscribed books." (A very common way of referring to 
the books prescribed; for entrance in English.) 

64. "Now I was enthused by the pleasure I found in 'The Lady of 
the Lake.'" 

65. "Imagine how severe a blow feels when your orJy amiability is 
abducted in a manner as Jessica was taken." 

66. "I have read from several different authors, fictional and other- 
wise." 

67. "Of the more technical books, I have read several editions on 
Electricity and Engineering." 

68. "The 'Autocrat' was full of fresh ideas, and, in the main, httle 
stunts of pleasant nonsense." 

69. "Although his bad points are showed up rather plainly, he has 
some good ones." 

■ 70. "His younger brother was kind of jealous of Godfrey's life." 



15 

71. "There Shylock had come to get his forfeit of a pound of flesh 
in perfectly good faith but got the raw end of the deal." 

72. "If any real good apology could be made for this first murder, 
all the others would fall in line." 

73. "I got an outline of the story and saw the plot as big as a side of 
a house." 

74. "In this way, while reading, I came to read merely to notice the 
grammar." 

75. "The second time is at the time when he is standing before the 
judge." 

76. "Squire Cass was considered a man of considerable wealth." 

77. "Still one thing still disturbed him greatly. The child was still 
alive even if the mother was dead." 

78. "Truly it is a pitiful sight to hear the broken-hearted old father 
repeat to his dearest friend the escapades of his trusted daughter Jessica." 

79. "Shylock whetted his revenge to the kindling point." 

SO. "Shylock was so blinded by his thirst for revenge that he bit off 
his own nose." 

SENTENCES 

First of all, a boy's command of grammar, punctuation, and 
common sense must combine to tell him what a sentence is. He 
will then see the absurdity of writing such inarticulate masses of 
words as these: — 

81. "Gareth's duty was over he had won his knighthood and the 
esteem and love of both Elaine and King Arthur." 

82. "His whole nature changed instead of the kind, good, and gener- 
ous man, he became a harsh, tyranical and imperious ruler." 

83. "Addison was born in 1672 he went to college, graduated, traveled 
over nearly all Europe, and engaged in politics." 

84. "That day a young lady asked a boon of the king, she desired 
Lancelot to combat for her and when Gareth asked permision for this 
undertaking it was willingly granted much to the disgust of the maiden, 
Laine." 

85. "Perhaps my most gratifying result was the reading of several of 
Edgar Allan Poe's works, I hke his style, his clear and strong description," 



16 

86. "Addison was born in the year 1672, and at an early age entered 
college, he immediately showed signs of being a scholar." 

87. "When Macbeth was sent to the frontier to fight with the Nor- 
wegians, in absence of Duncan, he fought with the true spirit of patriot- 
ism, though he could easily have sold the kingdom into the hands of 
Norway, yet he remained faithful.'' 

88. " Macbeth was not weak minded, he made a hard struggle against 
evil, but his ambition caused his ruin." 

89. " The bearing of Antonio in the Trial Scene, is so beautiful that it 
seems rather above human, refusing to fawn and beg mercy of the re- 
vengeful Jew, he prefers to take his punishment and take it like a man." 

90. " The characters in Comus are too affected, too wooden, they are 
not natiiral, especially the brothers, to act as they do, would be impos- 
sible in real life." 

91. "The Johnson Club was a club composed of such men as Johnson, 
Steele, Boswell, Goldsmith, Reynolds and others, the purpose of it was 
to get together at a quite social gathering and discuss literary topics, 
and this kind of thing was in those days as beneficial as the great libra- 
ries of today, because the best wits of the day gathered there and talked 
over the social conditions, that prevailed at that time, and the fact that 
Johnson was a member ought to be sufficient evidence for any one that 
it was a success, for nowhere in the history of the world, was there ever 
a greater conversationalist than he." 

Not only do the entrance examination books reveal little under- 
standing of what a sentence is; they show also that few candi- 
dates know how to make their sentences units in thought, and 
that fewer still know how to represent that unity in thought by 
unity in form. More than for any other single fault boys who 
take the Harvard entrance examinations in English suffer because 
they do not see which of two ideas in a sentence deserves to be 
made subordinate, and because they have little or no practical 
command of such grammatical devices for expressing subordina- 
tion as the parenthesis, the dependent clause, and the participial 
phrase. 

92. "We can see Portia represented in other people and I don't know 
how many times I have seen Shylock's character unfurled in actual life." 

93. "Bassanio was the son of a gentleman and he was also on the 
Rialto a great deal of the time." 



17 

94. "Addison was always remarkable for his wit and humor but he 
never returned an insult." 

95. "There were two brothers and their sister walking through a wood 
and in some way the sister became separated from her brothers and met 
a man who offered to show her the way." 

96. "The Whigs again lost power and the 'Tatler' had to be stopped 
but it was quickly replaced by the 'Spectator,' which was even a greater 
success." 

97. "Addison was a stout Whig and he had an office, that netted him 
about three hundred pounds a year, as secretary for Ireland and secre- 
tary of State but when Queen Anne came into power she, being a strong 
Tory, threw out all the Whig members of the government." 

98. "Shylock did not show mercy; but we all know that he was no 
gentleman, and because he did not, is it any reason why Antonio and 
Bassanio should make themselves the cause of his destruction and finally 
death?" 

99. "The natural desire is to despise the whole race of Jews and in so 
doing we are forced to see the evils of his nature, rather than the good 
points, but there are many places where we must have the deepest feeling 
for anyone of this outcast race." 

100. "The maiden wanders in the woods, and is tempted by the sur- 
rounding evils, and is led astray from the enchantress Comus, who offers 
her a drink, which if taken would change her into the form of an animal 
like unto her many converts whom she had foiled by the deluding liquor," 

101. "He finds her lost in the forest so makes her think that he is a 
shepherd thus bringing her to his palace where he tempts her in every 
way possible but she always gives him an answer which he cannot over- 
throw." 

102. "The youth followed her until they were lost in the woods and 
it was not long before they came upon six robbers, draging a prisoner." 

One offence against Unity in form is common enough to deserve 
special notice. The really well-planned answer is likely to con- 
sist of a general statement followed by a series of reasons for that 
statement. Answers thus constructed deserve so much credit 
that the examiners regret to see a boy mar his plan by including 
in a single sentence both the general statement and the first 
reason for it, and by phrasing the other reasons in separate sen- 
tences.^ 

^ See p. 26 for an analogous error in paragraph structure. 



18 

103. "There are several reasons why Shakspere's characters are more 
hke real persons than Milton's: in the first place the characters in Comus 
are meant to resemble traits. In the second place/' etc. 

To deal with Coherence is more difficult. Teachers of English 
in colleges may well feel gratified if by the end of the Freshman 
year their pupils are able to write coherently. And yet an 
examiner may reasonably withhold any grade above D from the 
boy who does not show at least a groping sense of Coherence. 
Hardly " any teacher of English needs to be told that Professor 
Wendell, whose treatment of this matter is decidedly the best, 
has pointed out ^ that Coherence is to be attained by the proper 
order of words, by the arrangement of parallel ideas in parallel 
constructions, and by the skilful use of connectives. To employ 
the first of these devices is merely to arrange words and phrases 
in the most natural order; to neglect it results in sentences like 
these: — 

104. " Comus is about to force some julep which he has in a glass on 
their sister." 

105. " Godfrey Cass was called away from a nice time where his loved 
Nancy was together with the doctor by Silas Marner who had found 
Godfrey's daughter in his home instead of his gold." 

106. "In the causes that Shylock gives for hating Antonio, just before 
lending the money if all he said was true, some of the things that An- 
tonio did was not quite like a gentleman, although he may have been 
provoked to such an extent that no human being could have contained 
himself." 

Everybody knows that the dangling participle is one of the 
commonest offences against Coherence. Probably there will 
always be dangling participles, but we cannot help thinking that 
there would be fewer had not the good old-fashioned drill of 
" parsing' ' almost perished from the earth. The following exam- 
ples more than sufficiently illustrate this fault: — 

107. "Hated and persecuted by the people of his time, one cannot 
help sympathizing with Shylock." 

108. "While waiting in the court, a noble maiden named Lynette 
entered and asked the king, to give her Sir Launcelot." 

^ English Composition, Chapter 3. 



19 

109. "Although blest with a loving wife, she was too ambitious for 
the welfare of her husband." 

110. "Being a boy, the story is told of Addison that he once partici- 
pated in a barring-out." 

111. "Drinking this, Comus can have no power over them." 

112. "Having reared his daughter and having tried to inculcate in 
her, the loftiest ideals of his race, it is sad to gaze upon him after her 
elopement." 

113. "After serving as kitchen nave for a few months, his mother 
relented and set him free from his promise." 

Few boys of eighteen can catch the trick of using those parallel 
constructions which make the prose of Macaulay so satisfying to 
read and so profitable to imitate; but every boy of eighteen ought 
to be trained to avoid such ''defective double-harness"^ as 

114. "Scott's poems appeal to me, because they are quite probable, 
good rythum and sound plot." 

115. "The Club served to make them acquainted with one another 
also knit them together closely and to punish each others faults." 

116. "They see ahead of them a woman whom Red Murdock says is 
crazy; that she wanders about through the forest; that it would be 
better for the neighborhood if she were killed." 

117. "In spite of Johnson's rough, rude ways and although, he ate 
like a pig, he had many friends." 

118. "Our hatred is changed to compassion when we hear stern 
Portia, as judge declare that one-half his goods must be surrendered 
to the state the other half to Antonio and his hfe to lie on the mercy of 
the man against whom he has plotted." 

119. "When Macbeth, valour's minion, was informed by the witches 
of his being the future Idng and although the wording gladly struck 
his ears, his first thought and pleasure was to write his wife, so that she 
might share the happiness of such a thought." 

The relation of the foregoing remarks about words and sen- 
tences to the notes on paragraphs and whole compositions which 
are to follow may best be summarized in Professor Wendell's 

1 The King's English, Oxford, 1906, pp. 311 £f. 



20 

generalization^ that "words and sentences are subjects of re- 
vision; paragraphs and whole compositions are subjects of pre- 
vision." Revision, therefore, should have served to correct all 
the blunders which we have so far discussed, unless those blunders 
were inadvertent. We cannot, then, too strongly advise boys 
who take the entrance examination not to spend the whole of the 
allotted time in writing their answers, but to save at least one- 
fifth of their time for a careful revision of their first draft. They 
will perhaps make this revision more thorough if they realize that 
although examination books must be legible, they need not be 
immaculate. They should remember that no careful writer con- 
siders his first draft inviolable. If he does not rewrite entirely, 
he is sure to strike out many words, to substitute some new ones, 
and to rearrange various phrases. This is precisely what candi- 
dates in English ought to do instead of writing to the very end 
of the allotted time. 

But even if he does save a little time to look over his paper, 
no boy can be expected to revise his own work successfully who 
has not in school been made to rewrite manuscript in the light of 
careful corrections. That school compositions are meagrely cor- 
rected is supposed to be due to lack of time. In one direction at 
least there is a remedy: the teacher of English who is spending 
more than half his time on the prescribed books ought to re- 
adjust his programme so as to pay more attention to the study 
of Composition. Otherwise he is letting the less important phase 
of his subject encroach upon the more important, — in other 
words, he is so busy in drilling boys on the books which illustrate 
the subject that he has insufficient time to teach the subject 
itself. We do not mean, of course, that boys should be sent up 
for examination who do not know the books. W^hat we do mean 
is that teachers of English who spend more than half their time on 
the prescribed books are forgetting that although the boy who is 
ignorant of his books may have a very small chance, the boy 
who cannot write has no chance at all, 

* English Composition, p. 117. 



21 



PARAGRAPHS 

We are now ready to consider paragraphs and whole composi- 
tions, which no writer, however skilful, can properly construct 
unless he first makes a careful plan. Yet the number of answers 
which show careful planning is extremely small. It may be said 
that boys of eighteen are incapable of doing much more than 
writing reasonably correct sentences one by one. This we deny. 
We believe that any boy can acquire the unnatural habit of be- 
ginning a paragraph with the transitional clause, "A second good 
trait of Macbeth's character was," just as he can acquire the 
unnatural habit of putting the verb at the end of a long sentence 
when he writes Latin prose. In each case what is necessary is 
merely drill and plenty of it. 

To show how necessary it is to plan out paragraph structure in 
advance, let us observe that as a rule examination questions are 
of two types. Of the first an example is "How Gareth became 
a Knight" (June, 1906). Of the second an example is "The 
Knights of Tennyson and of Scott" (September, 1906). The para- 
graph structure of an answer to the first question is not difficult 
to forecast, for the answer is a brief narrative, which naturally 
follows the order of events in time. To answer the second ques- 
tion, however, is an entirely different matter. For here, instead 
of following the natural sequence of events, we have to arrange 
in their logical order various instances of a general truth. In- 
asmuch as the paper in Elementary English for September, 1906, 
had out of fifteen questions ten which are obviously of this ana- 
lytic type, it is clearly necessary to know how answers to such 
questions can best be framed. Take the example already given, 
"The Knights of Tennyson and of Scott." Evidently there are 
at least two possible ways of constructing a composition on this 
subject. We may begin our outline thus: — 

I. The Knights of Tennyson. 

A. Their organization, 

1. The Round Table. 

B. Their vows. 

Etc., etc. 



22 

11. The Knights of Scott. 

A. Their life as soldiers of fortune. 
Etc., etc. 

A two-page answer thus composed would consist of two para- 
graphs, — one devoted to the knights of Tennyson, one to the 
knights of Scott. Or the composition might be planned in this 
way: — 

I. The ideals 

A. Of the Knights of Tennyson 

B. Of the Knights of Scott 

and so on in a series of paragraphs each devoted to the discussion 
of some one characteristic. For a short answer the first of these 
plans would probably be more effective; but our purpose is not 
so much to consider the relative merits of these plans as to point 
out that to follow either is altogether a different matter from 
"spinning a yarn," as one is asked to do in telling how Gareth 
became a knight. 

It is assumed that whenever a pupil composes a two-page 
theme at school, he is required to precede it by a detailed 
plan in outline. Teachers who are not requiring such plans 
should begin at once to do so. In the examination room as 
well as in school, the pupil should make a plan before he writes 
his composition. When we were discussing words and sen- 
tences, we advised candidates to save at least one-fifth of their 
time for revision. It is even more necessary to spend at least 
another fifth in prevision. A boy may make his outline in his 
examination book, or, if he desires it, he will be given extra sheets 
of paper to scribble plans on. We cannot too strongly urge the 
candidate not to put pen to paper until he has thought out the 
precise course which his answer is to take, and has jotted down 
a heading or a sub-heading for each of his principal points. Mean- 
while the boy in front of him may have written half a page; but 
no matter: it is almost certainly a very incoherent half-page, and 
its writer may very probably find that one may unload facts and 
facts and still get E. Let every teacher who sends up a boy to 
the English examination in June, 1907, fell that boy that in the 
opinion of the men who will read his examination book nothing 



23 

is more important than this: to forget that the room is unfamiliar 
and the occasion momentous, to he unconcerned at the progress which 
others appear to he making, and to rememher that they also write 
who only sit and think. 

That this advice is much needed will become clearer when we 
have shown by examples how faulty paragraphing in examina- 
tion books is at present. Many candidates have no clearer 
notion of what a paragraph actually is than had the boy who 
wrote : — 

120. "The Lady in 'Comus' remains pure just as any virtuous woman 
would. 

"Comus, however, is not like a real person at all. No human being 
has the power of changing mortals into the shape of an animal. 
"The Spirit and Sabrina are not like real persons in any respect. 
"The witches in 'Macbeth' are not very much like human beings." 

Comment on such work is hardly necessary. It is precisely 
the kind of writing that, under the rule that "no candidate will 
be accepted in English whose work is seriously faulty in spelling, 
grammar, punctuation, or division into paragraphs," merits the 
grade of E. But paragraphing need not be so grotesquely bad 
as this to cause failure. Book after book is marked E because, 
as in the instance which follows, the paragraphs run three or four 
to the page.^ 

121. "Two brothers traveling through a thick forest with their sister 
are overtaken by night. 

"The brothers leave their sister and go seeking for help. While they 
are gone the sister hears voices, and not knowing they are the voices of 
Comus and his rout, she sets out to find them. 

"To guide anyone who might hear, towards her, she sings a song. 
Comus, a wickid enchanter, hears it and appears before her in the garb 
of a shepherd. 

"He offers to guide her to his lowly cottage and she follows him, 
trustingly. 

"He leads her to his enchanted hall and there tries, by threats, en- 
treaties and flatteries, to make her drink a draught, which will turn her 
into a beast. 

' The books in which Harvard entrance examinations are written contain 
fifteen lines to the page. A page, therefore, means about seventy-five words. 



24 

"The lady resists all his efforts and refutes all his arguments success- 
fully. 

"Then the brothers guided by an attendant spirit, who helps all good 
people in distress, rush in and put Comus and his followers to rout. 

"The attendant spirit calls up from her river, Sabrina, a nymph whose 
pleasure it is to help maidens in distress. 

" She instantly releases the Lady from the chair, to which Comus had 
chained her with invisible bonds, and then the three go on their way 
rejoicing. 

"Comus was written to show how virtue, in the end, can overcome 
vice." 

At the other extreme from the "sentence paragraph" is the 
unbroken composition of three or four pages. 

122. "Many critics have toiled to give us an analysis of Macbeth 's 
character, but, to tell the truth, their work is practically unnecessary. 
For the great Shakespeare himself has put into the mouth of Lady Mac- 
beth words, which give us the key to his hero's inmost soul. He is brave 
and ambitious; but he is 'without the illness,' which should attend his 
ambition. In the eyes of Lady Macbeth, whose only thought is a passion- 
ate desire for power and glory, this may seem false ambition; but, in 
fact, it is the only true and noble one. When the temptation arises in 
his mind, he puts it down at first. 'Duncan is my hege and guest' he 
says to himself, when the thought occurs to him, to kill his king; 'I 
ought to guard him, not to bear the knife myself.' And when the tempter 
appears in the shape of his own wife, even then he nobly resists the force 
of evil. 'I dare do all that may become a man, who dares do more is 
none,' he exclaims, and at that moment he stands before us as a truly 
great and noble man. Alas! Had he but remained strong! But his next 
question already indicates his downfall: 'what, if it should be found 
out? ' From now on we see the tragic downfall and ruin of an originally 
noble soul; but great though our sympathy is, we cannot justify any of 
his acts; it is impossible to consider even his soliloquies in the latter 
part of the play anything but empty sophistries." 

It is perfectly true that such a composition contains fewer 
than three hundred words and that English literature abounds in 
paragraphs of three hundred words or even more. But that 
seems to us to be beside the point. Macaulay's paragraphs, 
although they often run up to five hundred words, are fractions 
of chapters which frequently contain a hundred pages. On the 



25 

other hand, the writer of an entrance examination book hardly 
ever writes a composition longer than six pages. His composi- 
tions, therefore, are really in miniature, and his paragraphs 
should be in scale with his whole compositions. Consequently, 
when a boy goes on for four pages in a single paragraph, the 
examiner is tempted to think that if time permitted, he would 
go on indefinitely. 

That the writer of the preceding composition did not divide it 
into paragraphs was probably because he wrote each sentence 
without knowing the. direction which the next one was to take. 
This is only another way of saying that, not having made an out- 
line plan of his answer, he had no means of seeing that his whole 
composition should not have consisted merely of sentences, but 
of two or three divisions of his subject, longer than any single 
sentence ought to be, which could be indicated only by para- 
graphs. Yet occasional indentation will not transform into a 
series of real paragraphs such masses of fact as we have been 
discussing, because the boy has not thought out his answer in 
terms of paragraphs. 

In the next example the case is different : — 

123. "There are two attributes of Scott's poetry which stand out 
above all others. They are action and description. The first of these 
is characteristic of his 'Marmion' and 'Lady of the Lake' especially. 
From the time one starts the 'Lady of the Lake' there is something 
happening all the time. The description of the stag hunt in the first 
Canto presages great things and the rest of the poem fulfils all promises 
in that direction. To me poetry had always seemed dull and prosaic 
until I read Scott. The young mind is full of action and demands some- 
thing that has active, virile life to it. I have read 'Lady of the Lake' 
more times than any other selection or book simply because it was stir- 
ring and showed life. Second only in my estimation, and according to 
some readers first, is the element of description. He doesn't weary one 
with useless description but nevertheless his attention to detail is sur- 
prising when one looks especially for that thing. However, with a great 
diversity of adjectives and his use of synonyms he so skilfully goes into 
details that one does not realize it unless looking for it particularly. 
Although too strongly written for delicacy, it is refined, and even being 
refined, it shows the martial spirit of war and the rough life of the High- 
lander." 



26 

Here the sub-structure of thought is such as to indicate clearly 
the proper places to break the answer into paragraphs. The boy 
virtually wrote from the following plan: — 

I. The chief attributes of Scott's poetry. 

A. Action. 

B. Description. 

If the sentences beginning "The first of these" and ''Second 
only in my estimation" had each been made to begin a new 
paragraph, the composition would have been in form as well as 
in thought an organic series of paragraphs. 

Let us now consider an error in paragraphing analogous to 
the faulty division into sentences which we noted on page 17. 

124. "Of the scenes in The Merchant of Venice the ones which excite 
the most sympathy for Shylock are those where Bassanio asks for the 
loan, the scene where he bewails that even his daughter has left him, and 
finally the Court scene. In the first of these three Shylock probably 
makes his most famous plea, and trys to show Bassanio that he like 
other men must eat to live, and has feelings, a heart and soul. His de- 
fence of himself in this instance is strong and shows his good character. 

"In the second scene Shakspeare makes the reader realize the agony 
of Shylock, when even his daughter, Rebecca, runs away and leaves him 
alone. The last scene in which Portia, acting as a judge, pronounces 
to Shylock that he can have a pound a flesh, and not an ounce more 
nor a drop of blood. Poor Shylock sees right away that he has lost all. 
He can neither obtain his three thousand ducats or his pound of flesh. 
This last scene probably excites more sorrow for him than any other, 
because here even the learned judge turns against him." 

According to its plan, this answer should consist of four para- 
graphs, for although these four paragraphs would all be short, 
the points are coordinate, and some of them have been developed 
in more than one sentence. 

From the fault illustrated by the last two examples the follow- 
ing composition is free, for its writer has not only thought in 
paragraphs, but has also indicated them to the eye. 

125. "Our sympathy for Shylock is aroused in the scene where he 
defends his religion and in the trial scene. 

"Driven to passion a;ad fury by persecution, and finding his re viler 
within his power, Shylock delivers his famous justification of revenge, 



27 

beginning: 'To bait fish withal' — At this point Shylock rises to his 
greatest height. His defense of his religion is noble and strong — his 
justification of revenge we can not help admiring. 

"The appeal to our sympathies in the trial scene is of a different 
nature. Misfortune after misfortune weighs him down. His life is in 
danger, his property confiscated, his daughter married to a Christian, 
Shylock is compelled to change his faith. In this scene Mr, E. H. 
Sothern, whose interpretation of the character throughout the play fills 
us with a certain awe for Shylock 's power, shows us a weak, broken old 
man, who totters and falls as he leaves the room. We pity Shylock 
here," 



WHOLE COMPOSITIONS 

When we turn from paragraphs to whole compositions, we find 
that in answers as short as those in examination books must be 
the problem of structure is much the same as in the case of the 
paragraph. Here, as there, excellence consists in the logical 
coordination which can be made only by careful prevision. But 
of course the candidate must answer the question accurately, 
squarely, and at sufficient length. Failure to do one or another 
of these things, however, is so common that it will be worth our 
while to consider certain types of answers the faults of which as 
whole compositions are inseparably connected with the fact that 
the information of the writer was in one way or another defective. 

First of all, there are a great many answers which have to be 
graded E because they are too meagre. Such answers are most 
likely to occur toward the end of the examination book and seem 
to show either that the examination is too long or that candi- 
dates spend too much time in answering the earlier questions. 
With all due regard to the necessity of emphasizing quality rather 
than quantity, and to the difficulty of knowing precisely how 
much to require in a given time from a boy whom one has never 
seen, it is certainly not too much to expect that in fifteen minutes 
a candidate shall write more than this: — 

126. "The characters in Comus are very much unlike those in Shak- 
spere's plays. The mask, Comus, is nothing but a beautiful myth, where 
as Shakspere has plays which pertain to possible fife, and the characters 
are nearer hfe than those in Comus." 



28 

It is to be observed that the boy was asked to give reasons for 
his answer. Although he has presumably read Comus and three 
plays of Shakspere, he writes a composition which, inasmuch as 
he fails to mention a single character or even a single play, has 
really no more value than a simple "yes" or ''no." 

Another answer to the same question is worth reproducing, al- 
though its faults are extremely obvious : — 

127. "Some of the Characters in Comus are more like real characters 
than those in Shakspere's plays. Others are not as real. 

"The characters, The Lady and her too brothers are real; because 
the mask was written so that these real people should be the same char- 
acters both in life and the mask. 

"As for Comus and the Spirit there could not be more unreal char- 
acters." 

This answer is slightly better than the one before it, for the 
writer attempts to illustrate his point. He illustrates only one- 
half of the topic, however, and that very clumsily. 

For the next answer twenty minutes were allowed. The result 
was a composition which, without regard to its other faults, de- 
serves E for its substance. 

128. "Macbeth the villianous king of Scotland had a number of good 
traits, and often showed through his weak nature a rather tender heart. 

"In battle Macbeth was indeed a brave man, and won great distinc- 
tion for himself. 

"Although a murderer he showed great devotion toward his wife and 
children. 

"The good traits of a person who has comitted such crimes as Macbeth 
did, are not likely to have their characters printed in a very pleasing 
light, although Macbeth no doubt had numerous good traits that we do 
not know about." 

Inaccuracy is if anything more prevalent and more disastrous 
than meagreness. From occasional errors of fact hardly any ex- 
amination book is free; but occasional errors of fact are not fatal. 
Yet of course no candidate can afford to indulge more than once 
or twice in such astonishing statements as these: — 

129. "Gareth was the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Bella- 
donna." 



29 

130. "Pope as a dramatist in his Cato is not as good as Marvell in 
Dr. Faustus." 

131. " I like Shakespeare very well, and have read most of his Waverley 
Novels." 

132. "Addison's first work was a poem in which he compared Welling- 
ton to the Gaurdian Angle, because of his ode on the Battle of Blenheim." 

133. "Comus is the story of a man who was to be made Earl at Ludlow 
Castle." 

134. "Addison's college life was very pleasant and his best friend 
there was a Mr. King, upon whose death he wrote Lycidas." 

135. "Johnson's Club was a set of literary men, of which Johnson 
was the leader. . . . Among those who were members, were Addison, 
Steele, Swift, Pope, Spencer, and others." 

Persistent inaccuracy, however, is fatal, especially when, as is 
usually the case, it is accompanied by bad writing. 

136. "Addison was in many respects similiar to other great writters, 
such as Goldsmith Johnson and Steel. 

"He started poor and worked many years as a book-sellers hag. His 
early life was a very wandering one such as that of Oliver Goldsmith 
and Johnson. He travelled in Italy and became an instructor in a 
college there. He returned to England and attempted polotics, but was 
not a success. He was given the honory position of concilor for Irland. 

"His manner was a very quite and modest one, which commanded 
the respect and love of all, even his opponents." 

137. "Addison passed his early life in the place in which he was born. 
It was situated a little way from Harvard College on what was then 
called Tory's Row. He was educated by a private tutor, and, at the 
age of sixteen entered Harvard College. He had no rooms at the Col- 
lege, but lived at his own home. The beauty of the country around his 
place afforded him many topics for his books." 

The examples above are comically obvious. Less entertaining, 
but more useful, are the following instances of failure to meet the 
question squarely. In the first, the boy professes to answer 
this question: "Are the characters in Comus as much like real 
persons as the characters in Shakspere's plays? Give reasons for 
your answer." He writes as follows: — 

138. "I do not think that the characters in 'Comus' are much like 
those in Shakspeare's plays. They do not seem to have the spirit, or do 



30 

they have the power of interesting the reader as any of Shakspeare's do. 
Although the characters in 'Comus' have not the opportunity to bring 
out their spirit or power, in the opportunity that is given them, they do 
not interest the reader as Shakspeare's do." 

Such a topic as "Scott's Poetry" is sufficiently liberal, but it 
hardly includes the subject matter of this answer: — 

139. "When one speaks of Scott's poetry one immediately thinks of 
'The Lady of the Lake.' It is true that this is his greatest poem. When 
we read his historical novels, such as Ivanhoe, we would not say if asked 
that we were reading poetry. Yet such is the case. Seotts descriptions 
in this, and other of his stories, are as near to being poetry as anything 
can be. Thus we see that practically everything that Scott wrote was 
poetry, and as such has been surpassed by very few writters up to the 
present day." 

Such discursiveness the examiner tries to check by framing a 
question like this, "Relate the early life of Addison up to the 
time when he began to write for the Spectator." The following 
answer is only one of many in which the candidate refused to 
confine himself to the prescribed subject: — 

140. "In Addeson's early life he was a great scholar, and wrote Latin 
poetry. He Avas a very smart man, but was easily embarressed. He 
was a whig. Being a very able man, the Whig party when they came 
in Power sent Addeson to france to study french. He stayed abrode 
about three years, visiting Italy, Germany, Endland. While traverling 
in Italy, it is supposed that he conceived the Idea to put the play of 
Cato upon the stage. At this period the plays were very smutty, and 
Addeson greatly improved them. 

"Addeson when talking with his friends could speak eloquently but 
when he once tried to make a speech in Parliment, he was unable to say 
one word. 

"Pope and Addeson were great friends, but they had a falling out, 
on account of Popes jealously. They never became intimate friends 
again while they lived." 

Occasionally, as in the next extract, a boy evades the point 
by writing not a general answer, but a very specific answer 
which, however, has little or nothing to do with the precise ques- 
tion. 

141. "Addison was a great scholar for a certain period of Latin litera- 
ture. While at college his latin verse was the envy of the whole college. 



31 

Later, Boileau the french critic who maintained that no modern could 
possibly write good Latin verse said that Addison wrote the best imita- 
tion latin 'verse that he had read. But though Addison knew one period 
of Latin well he knew neither 'other periods of Latin literature nor any- 
Greek literature. This is shown in some of his writings where he de- 
scribes places which are familiar to Greek hterature or other periods of 
Latin literature, yet we find no refrences in the notes or anywhere else 
to these.'' 

In some compositions of this sort the attempt to evade the 
question seems deliberate. In others the faulty emphasis is ob- 
viously unintentional. Boys who really wish to meet the question 
squarely may be helped to do so if they remember that 

1. Before they begin to write they must read with the strict- 
est attention every question, no matter how simple it seems. 
The question on the plot of Comus, for example, tripped up a 
great many boys who, failing to observe that Comus when printed- 
in italics means not the character but the masque itself, answered 
the imaginary question, "What evil design had Comus?" 

2. They must resist the temptation to over-emphasize any 
points which stand out in their memory with undue prominence. 
Suppose, for example, a boy is asked to discuss "Antonio and 
Bassanio as Gentlemen." He begins his composition by observ- 
ing that the difference between these two characters may best 
be shown in their treatment of Shylock. At this point he un- 
fortunately remembers that while at school he wrote a composi- 
tion on "The Character of Shylock." To write down what he 
remembers of this is so much easier than to stick to what he was 
asked to do that he cannot resist the temptation. The probable 
result is that two-thirds of his answer is entirely beside the point. 
Evasions like this are marked with particular severity, for they 
always raise the presumption that the boy is using material 
which represents not his unaided style, but the combined efforts 
of himself and his teacher. 

Akin to the fault of answering evasively any given question is 
the error of throwing the whole examination book out of propor- 
tion by writing on one topic at inordinate length. For example, 
one boy wrote five and a half pages (one-half of his entire book) 
upon a single question. In answering this question he was asked 



32 

to spend twenty minutes. Apparently he spent a great deal 
more, for to each of the other questions upon which twenty- 
minute compositions were required he devoted one page. The 
result was an injury to the two questions which were slighted 
that far outweighed the advantage of answering one question 
very fully. The upshot of all this is that candidates must read 
carefully the directions at the top of the paper and must divide 
their time equally, or in such proportion as the examiner sug- 
gests, among the questions. 

It is a pleasure to turn from answers in which, as Stevenson 
says of Treasure Island, ''the general coloring was uniform and 
sad," to a few compositions which for their maturity of thought, 
their fulness of information, their organic structure, and their 
almost complete freedom from elementary blunders, clearly merit 
distinction. 

■^i 142. "lij in writing his admirable drama, 'The Merchant of Venice,' 
Shakepeare originally intended to paint Shylock, the Jew, as a mere villain 
and object of scorn, the great dramatist must assuredly have changed 
his purpose, in order to produce a character exciting such a variety of 
emotions as Shylock invariably calls forth. For while, in portions of the 
play, our feelings as regards this character are those of abhorrence, yet 
there are nevertheless passages which bring forth strong and undisguised 
commiseration, and even admiration. 

"Of those passages which excite our sympathy for Shylock, there are 
quite a goodly number. One of these is that part in which the Jew 
makes that famous speech in which he asks, 'Hath not a Jew eyes? 
Hath not a Jew ears?' Shylock renders here a well-deserved rebuke to 
the haughty Antonio and his friends, who did not seem to realize that 
Jews, like other people, have feelings and understandings. 

"The scene wherein Shylock bewails the elopement of Jessica is, 
moreover, another portion exciting pity for the Jew; for even while we 
laugh at the incongruous mixture of avarice and parental devotion here 
displayed, we cannot but feel for him whose daughter and money have 
both been taken from him. When, furthermore, Shylock hears of his 
daughter's travels, and that she has sold the ring which was given him 
by his departed wife, his grief cannot fail to awaken our sympathy. 

" But most of all, we are compelled to sympathize with Shylock at the 
coiu-t scene. Then it is that we behold him not merely baffled and 
defeated by a trick of the law, but in addition completely ruined and 
disgraced; and as he staggers forth, broken down, dishonored, insulted, 
and undone, we are compelled to consider him an object of pity. 



.33 

" In various scenes, then, we observe that we are forced to sympathize 
with Shylock: when he is insulted, wronged, robbed and finally — and 
most of all — when he is ruined by those professing to be Christians." 

143. "Little is known of Addison's boyhood, except that he seems to 
have' been full of mischief, which does not seem consistent with his later 
life. He was sent to Charter House, where he met Steele. He early 
developed a fondness and an aptitude for Latin poetry, and spent much 
of his leisure hours in reading Latin verse. He entered Queen's College, 
Oxford, where he surprised all by his remarkable knowledge of Latin. 
Because of this he was moved to Magdalene College, of which Dr. 
Lancaster was master. He became a Demy and later a Fellow. He wrote 
several Latin poems, which were pronounced almost as good as Vergil. 

"His first attempts in English verse were of no particular value, but 
they were received enthusiastically by the public. The reason of this 
enthusiasm may be attributed to the fact that the heroic couplets were 
not so well known at that time. Among some of these verses, there was 
a poem, written in praise of one of Congreve's works. There followed 
an exchange of civilities, and through Congreve, Addison was introduced 
to some of the great men of the time. 

"Among these was Lord Somers, at that time Chancellor. He proved 
to be one of Addison's most helpful friends. 

" It had always been supposed that Addison would take orders, as his 
college had many advantages to offer in that line, and as his father, 
Lancelot Addison, was a prominent churchman. But, when, the time 
came for Addison to make his choice, he was influenced by Somers to 
choose in favor of the diplomatic service. It was feared that the Col- 
lege authorities would object, but the Minister wrote to Hough and 
arranged matters. 

"Addison was provided with a pension and went abroad to study 
French. In Paris he met Malbranche and Boileau, and several other 
prominent men. Owing to the Duke of Anjou's inheriting the Kingdom 
of Spain, he left for Italy where he visited the principle cities. He went 
to Geneva, and, owing to the loss of his pension, he became the tutor 
to a young Englishman. He shortly returned to England, and for some 
time was in pecuniary need. 

"After Blenheinl, Godolphin, then Minister, following the advice of 
Halifax, asked Addison to write a poem for this victory. The Campaign 
was the result of this. Shortly after this poem's appearance, Addison 
published his 'Travels in Italy' and his opera 'Rosamund.' 

"Owing to a partial change in the Ministry, Addison was appointed 
Under-Secretary to Ireland, and he left England for Dublin. It was 
from this city that he send his first contribution to the 'Tatler,' which 
was afterwards revived in the immortal 'Spectator.'" 



34. 

144. "Johnson was a man of great ability, and of renowned taste for 
talking. It is probable, then, that it was Johnson's love for talking 
which brought it into his mind to organize a club, destined to contain 
the greatest authors, statesmen, and artists of the day. In this club we 
find such men as Goldsmith, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other 
lesser lights. The club met once a week, or as often as there were three 
members present, for that constituted a meeting. Although Boswell 
does not say so directly, we infer from a few things dropped by Gold- 
smith that every evening Johnson took a mortgage on the conversation, 
and the other members were compelled to subside into their seats and 
listen for hours to his never ending rotation of fifteen-letter words. Not- 
withstanding this, we are sure that Johnson's Club did a great deal for 
its members and for the world, in that each member was enlightened by 
the others, and the world by the writings, speeches, and pictures of all." 

145. "Whether or not we shall call Antonio and Bassanio gentlemen 
depends much on the two conceptions of the word — that is — the six- 
teenth and twentieth century conceptions. In Shakespeare's day the 
requisites of gentlemanliness were somewhat different than our own. 
It was held that a day laborer could not possibly be a gentleman — his 
rough life, low birth, lack of education, want of so-called courtesy were 
things that could not be passed over. On the other hand unless a man 
were a sot, an utterly depraved rake, or an out-and-out criminal, suavity, 
wealth, and a feeling and show of contempt and disgust for the masses 
were the.outward and visible signs of gentility. At that time too, morals 
were at a lower ebb. As in the case of D'Artagnan in the 'Three Mus- 
keteers' a mistress was a most legitimate and even honorable means of 
support, and to recoup a lost fortune by marriage not only a common 
but also the only sensible way. But to-day we feel different about those 
things. We know well clothes do not make the man, and that courtesy 
— the true kind — is as often found in cottages as palaces. ' He married 
for money ' is not only a jest but a sneer and term of scorn. 

"Antonio was a product of his time. His attitude towards Shylock, 
even in seeking a favor, was rude and discourteous in the extreme. Fur- 
ther more, his attitude towards Bassanio's marriage was much like that 
of the French syndicate that fianceers an international marrige. Bas- 
sanio also makes no bones of saying that tho he loves Portia truly he 
expects to restore his wasted patrimony by the 'conquest.' 

"I suppose, however, those things are non-essentials in this case at 
least. Antonio is more than generous to Bassanio. Bassanio repays 
with love, and is acceptable to Portia, a thing which most of us would 
take as proof enough that he was a gentleman. It is certain that Shake- 
speare considered them so. He was guided by his time of life. Judged 
by his standards they were gentlemen. Let us so judge them," 



35 



n. EI^GLISH A 

Inasmuch as the candidate who passes EngUsh A (the advanced 
entrance examination) is exempt from the prescribed English 
Composition of the Freshman year (also called English A), he 
must have done the equivalent of English A as it is given at Har- 
vard College. It is clear from the phrasing of the Catalogue that 
to read the prescribed books is not the chief part of the require- 
ments. That the list is not intended to seem fixed appears from 
the fact that certain selections from Tennyson and from Browning 
are suggested rather than required; and that it is not self-sufh- 
cient is obvious from the foot-note on page 336 of the Catalogue 
for 1906-07: "In connection with the prescribed books, parallel 
or subsidiary reading should be encouraged." Indeed, a boy who 
reads these books ought to find them a source of pleasure, and it 
is believed that he will if he follows the advice of the Catalogue 
(page 336) that he ''should read them as he reads other books, — 
not trying to remember them in detail, but regarding each work 
as a whole and giving it such appreciation as shall enable him 
to write about it intelligently. In every case the examiner will 
regard knowledge of the books as less important than ability to 
write English." 

Inasmuch as ability to write English is the chief requisite, at 
least one-half of the four years of preparation in English should 
be devoted to Composition. What the earlier stages of this train- 
ing in Composition should be is probably apparent from the first 
part of this report. But since candidates for the advanced en- 
trance examination are really expected to be one year more 
mature than those candidates whose faults we have been dis- 
cussing in Part I, it is clear that the final stage of preparation for 
the advanced examination must closely correspond to the pro- 
gramme of English A as it is given at Harvard College. 

In English A at Harvard College the theory of composition is 
taught throughout the year, partly by lectures and recitations 
based on Hill's Principles of Rhetoric, Wendell's English Composi- 
tion, and other text-books, partly by oral and written exercises. 



36 

At the beginning of the year, each student is given the following 
syllabus: — 

ENGLISH A SYLLABUS 

I. Words. 

A. Requirements of Good Use. 

1. Reputable. 

2. National. 

3. Present. 

B. Violations of Good Use. 

1. Barbarisms. 

2. Solecisms. 

3. Improprieties. 

C. Choice of Words. 

1. Clearness. 

2. Force. 

3. Ease. 

D. Number of Words. 

1. Clearness. 

2. Force. 

3. Ease. 

E. Words Misspelled. 

F. New Words. 

References:^ J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, Words and their 
Ways in English Speech; *A. S, Hill, Principles of Rhetoric, Part i, Books 
1 and 2; Arlo Bates, Talks on Writing English, 1, iv, vii (Figures);' Scott 
and Denny, Composition-Literature, v-vi; *Wendell, English Composition, 
Chap, ii; Bates, II, iv (Participles and Gerunds), v (Particles), xi (Fig- 
ures); Pearson, Principles of Composition, xii; Herrick and Damon, 
Composition and Rhetoric, pp. 241-281 ; H. Spencer, Philosophy of Style., 
pp. 9-16, 27-34. 

II. Sentences. 

A. Kinds. 

1. Periodic. 

2. Loose. 

* Only those books marked with an asterisk are prescribed. 



37 

B. Principles of Composition. 

1. Unity. 

a. Of Substance. 

b. Of Expression. 

2. Mass (or Emphasis). 

3. Coherence. 

a. Order. 

b. Grammatical Form. 

c. Connectives. 

C. Variety of Sentence to suit Kind and Tone of 

the Composition. 

Refekences: *Wendell, ChajD. iii; Hill, Principles, Book 1, Chap, hi; 
Bates, II, vi (Parallel Construction) ; Pearson, ix-xi; Herrick and Damon, 
pp. 283-340; H. Spencer, pp. 16-27; W. F. Webster, English: Comvosi- 
tion and Literature, pp. 200-234, 

III. Paragraphs. 

A. Principles of Composition. 

1. Unity. 

2. Mass. 

3. Coherence. 

References: *Wendell, Chap, iv; Bates, II, v\\ (The Topic Sen- 
tence) ix; Hill, Principles, pp. 230-238; Scott and Denny, Paragraph 
Writing; Scott and Denny, Composition-Rhetoric, pp. 41-133; Pearson, 
Chaps, vi-viii; Herrick and Damon, pp. 347-363; Webster, Chap. vii. 

IV. Whole Compositions. 

A. Kinds. 

1. Exposition. 

a. Pure Exposition. 

b. Criticism. 

c. Biography. 

2. Argument. 

a. Brief. 

X. Introduction. 
y. Brief Proper, 
z. Conclusion. 

b. Forensic. 



38 

3. Description. 

a. Kinds. 

X. Scientific. 
y. Artistic. 

b. Principles. 

w. Point of View. 

X. Dominant Tone. 

y. Selection of Details. 

z. Arrangement of Details. 

c. Description in the Service of Nar- 

ration. 

4. Narration. 

a. Plot. 

b. Setting (or Background). 

c. Characterization. 

5. Letter- Writing. 

a. Formal. 

b. Informal. 

B. Principles of Composition. 

1. Unity. 

2. Mass. 

3. Coherence. 

General References : *Wendell, v ; Bates, I, iii ; *HiU, Principles, pp. 
239-246; Pearson, ii-v; Herrick and Damon, 375-387. 

Exposition: Bates, I, x-xi; Bates, II, xii; Hill, Principles, pp. 300- 
326; Lamont, Specimens of Exposition, Introduction; Webster, Chap. v. 

Criticism: Bates, I, xxi. 

Argument: *Baker and Huntington, Principles of Argumentation, pp. 
14-60, 64-77, 168-194, 205-257; Bates, II, xii, xiii. , 

Description: Bates, I, xiv, xv; Bates, II, x (Point of View), xiii; 
Baldwin, Specimens of Description, Introduction; Scott and Denny, 
Composition-Literature, viii; Webster, iv. 

Narration: Bliss Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Bates, I, xvi-xix; 
Bates, II, xiv, xv (Dialogue), xvii (Letter- Writing) ; Brewster, Specimens 
of Narration, Introduction; Webster, ii. 

V. Punctuation. 

References: Bates, II, xvi; Herrick and Damon, pp. 96-109; HilL 
General Rules for Punctuation, 



39 

This syllabus serves both as the outline of the course and as 
the table of contents of the student's note-book. In this note- 
book he is expected not only to record the gist of what his in- 
structor tells him about such matters as Unity, Solecisms, or Ex- 
position, but also to illustrate them by entering and correcting, 
each under its proper heading, such errors in his compositions as 
his instructor may indicate. 

It is to be observed that this syllabus covers three subjects: 
Rhetoric (I), Composition (II, III, IV B), and the Forms of Prose 
Literature (IV A). 

THEMES 

Practice in the application of these principles of Rhetoric and 
Composition to the various kinds of writing is obtained in one- 
page daily themes, some of which are written in the class-room 
on topics announced after the class has assembled, and in longer 
themes prepared at intervals of about a fortnight. The long 
themes are as follows : — 

I. Who I am and why I came to Harvard (500-1000 words). 
II. How to make or do something (500-1000 words). 

III. A subject selected with the approval of the instructor 

(500-1000 words). 

IV. An exposition of something learned in a College course 

(500-1000 words). 

V. An expression of opinion (500-1000 words). 

VI. A biographical portrait (1500-2000 words). 

VII. A brief of an argument (4 to 5 pages). 

VIII. An argument (1000-1500 words). 

IX. A description (500-1000 words). 

X. A narrative (500-1000 words). 

XL A narrative (1000-2000 words). 

Each of these themes is preceded by a plan in outline, is criticised 
in detail by the instructor in a personal conference with the stu- 
dent, and is then either revised or rewritten. 



40 



PRESCRIBED READING 

In addition to the study of Rhetoric and Composition, and to 
the writing and rewriting of themes, certain reading is required. 
This year the reading is as follows : — 

First Half-Year 

General. Shakspere, As You Like It; Othello; Henry IV, Part I; 
Henry V. 
Specimens of Prose Composition, Part I. 

Oct. Macaulay, History of England, Chapter iii. 

Nov. L. B. R. Briggs, School, College, and Character. 

Dec. J. R. Green, A Short History of the English People, Part 
III, Chapter vii, Section 3, ''Queen Elizabeth"; 
Macaulay, "Sir William Temple," in Critical and His- 
torical Essays. 

Jan. Stevenson, Virginihus Puerisque. 

Second Halp-Year 

General. The English Bible: Genesis, 1-8, 22, 37, 39-50; Deu- 
teronomy, 1-11; 1 Samuel, 16-20; 2 Samuel, 18; 
1 Kings, 17-22; Job; Psalms, 1-34, 37, 42, 46, 68, 84, 
90, 91, 95, 96, 107, 115, 120-122, 127, 137, 139, 145- 
150; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Isaiah, 1, 2, 6-11, 40, 41, 
60; Ezekiel, 37; Revelation, 1-5, 21, 22. 
Specimens of Prose Composition, Part II. 

Feb. Lincoln, Letters and Speeches (''Little Masterpieces" 
series) . 

Mar. Stevenson, "A Night among the Pines," from Travels 
with a Donkey; Kipling, The Spring Running; Ruskin, 
Selections ("Little Masterpieces" series), pp. 1-100. 

April. Kipling, William the Conqueror, The Man Who would he 
King, Without Benefit of Clergy; Poe, The Cask of 
Amontillado, The Gold Bug; Stevenson, The Merry 
Men, A Lodging for the Night. 



41 

May. Two of the following novels: Thackeray, Henry Esmond; 
George Eliot, Middlemarch; Jane Austen, Pride and 
Prejudice; Kipling, Kim; Stevenson, Treasure Island; 
Dickens, David Copperfield; Trollope, The Prime Min- 
ister, Barchester Towers; Hardy, The Return of the 
Native; Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel; Scott, 
Kenilworth; Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Haw- 
thorne, The Scarlet Letter. 

These books are selected to illustrate the kind of writing which 
the student is practising at the time. The most explicit illustra- 
tion of these kinds of writing is in the Specimens of Prose Compo- 
sition. The other prescribed books are merely read; the Speci- 
mens of Prose Composition is very carefully studied. Selections 
from it, each short enough to give at one reading a total im- 
pression of its structure, are read in class and are so thoroughly 
analyzed that each student is expected to become intimately 
familiar with their craftsmanship. 

In conclusion, it may be pointed out that the suggestions 
made in this report should, if followed, tend to improve the 
quality of the examination books in other subjects as well as 
in English. 



